“Pretty Little Liars” recap (4.03): Mama Said Knock You Out

Previously on Pretty Little Liars, Jessica DiLaurentis rolled back into town with a literal truckload of Ali’s shit, including a living, breathing parrot that Ali taught to be a bitch and also to whistle Cape May Beach Hottie’s phone number before she died. Paige and Emily made out and made plans to break free from Rosewood. Aria dumped Ezra to save his life and started taking krav maga classes to save her own life. Spencer created a scale model of Thornhill Lodge and Landing Strip out of cucumbers. Hanna came at Ashley from a hundred different angles trying to get her to confess to killing Wilden, even though everyone knows all she did was tap him with her car a little bit. And Mona continued to prove she is worthy of all our worship.

Rear Window Brew. The Liars are digging through a bucket of Ali paraphernalia that Emily lifted from the shrine she’s apparently helping Mrs. D build in Ali’s old room. It’s the usual stuff: journals, disembodied Barbie heads, receipts for storage lockers and poisons and wigs and like aviator goggles and one of those leather flying hats like Snoopy wears. There’s nothing new to report, except that Mona is not around, which makes everyone feel just as weird as they do when she’s all up in their nuts. But the Liars aren’t the only ones enjoying some delicious morning coffees. Also present are:

1) Ella Montgomery, whose man-child boyfriend has gotten himself some kind of donut-making internship in a castle by the sea in Europe. She is a vision of grace as always. In fact, she somehow manages not to slap this guy in his mouth when he says, “Why don’t you take motherhood off the table and come with me across the ocean?” Take motherhood off the table? Take motherhood off the table? I am not the mother of children, but I am the mother of two dogs, and if someone — even a very good-looking someone who had access to unlimited pastries — said that to me, I would throw a firecracker at his eyeballs. Like, “Shelve being a pastry-chef for a second, and—” “I can’t shelve being a pastry chef! I create pastries! It’s who I am!” “Right, and I created two children. Get back to me when you push a seven-pound eclair out of your vagina.“

2) Melissa Hastings, who is back from her trip to D.C., boasting of plans to take an internship on the left coast or in London. She and Spencer hate each other and love each other so much. Their body language is amazing: They won’t even fully face one another or make eye contact for longer than a nanosecond. But also, they both kind of agree that it’s time for them to blow this town. And not in the way Ali blew this town (repeatedly and on video). But like in the way where they get the hell out of here because obviously their “parents” are never coming back and Radley and/or prison and/or death is one baby step away for both of them.

Caleb is home from chasing down his dad. He was just living out in the woods. You know, the Hobo Code and all that. Catching fish with his bare hands and eating them raw. He and Caleb bonded over how they’ve very rarely ever had roofs over their heads and then they killed a bear and cooked up some supper and ate canned beans and played their harmonicas. Hanna barely hears him because she’s still so worked up over Ashley acting cagey about her NYC trip. Everyone keeps telling Hanna that Ashley didn’t kill Wilden, but no one is saying the right thing, which is: Who cares if your mom killed Wilden? It was the correct thing to do, whoever did it.

My nephew is six years old and time is still a very abstract concept to him, so you have to explain things in terms of Dora the Explorer episodes. Like, “Driving to the circus will take one and a half Doras.” Or, “You can stay in the pool for the length of three Doras.” I bring that up because Ella is explaining to Aria that if she doesn’t follow her boy toy to Austria, she won’t see him for a year, which amount of time Aria cannot understand unless she converts it to Ezra Hours. When she does that, a year sounds like an eternity to be away from your boyfriend, and she starts thinking maybe she owes her mom a solid. She stayed married to awful Byron for an awfully long time.